


Fairytale Ending

by Goativa



Series: Heart Aflame [2]
Category: Code Geass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dragons, Fantasy, M/M, Resurrection, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26937046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goativa/pseuds/Goativa
Summary: And so ends the story of an evil dragon slain by the righteous knight.  The princess is saved, the kingdom rejoices, it's a happy ending for everyone.Or...that's the story everyone else tells.  Nobody talks about what happens to the knight once the story is over and the book is closed.
Relationships: Kururugi Suzaku/Lelouch Lamperouge | Lelouch vi Britannia
Series: Heart Aflame [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965679
Comments: 5
Kudos: 59





	1. His Burning Embrace

Objectively, Suzaku knows this painting is beautiful. The skill is impeccable, the colors are stunning and vibrant. It would no doubt evoke emotions of awe in a normal person staring up at the work of art.

Suzaku hates it.

It’s styled after the famous  _ St. Michael Fighting the Dragon _ . Suzaku sees the oil figure of himself looking down upon the dragon as he spears through its chest with holy steel. The dragon is a terrible sight to behold, maw agape and body twisted in curls of anger and feral rage. It looks as a dragon should: base, evil, a stand-in for Satan himself. Something to be defeated and conquered.

It’s wrong, so very wrong to see the facsimile of his armored boot crushing down on the dragon’s throat.

It’s so very wrong to what actually happened. That day wasn’t a victory.

_ “Dragons don’t get happy endings, Suzaku. Knights do. Slay the beast, save the princess, the kingdom rejoices.” _

As he looks upon the painting it feels more and more blasphemous--sacreligious. To reduce the man--the dragon, the deity in Suzaku’s life, Lelouch’s faithful acolyte--into a mere beast. 

He remembers thinking, as Lelouch had shown him that mythical spot where the scales were missing, that it was so very poetic that Lelouch’s weak spot was his heart. Instead of lancing Lelouch with sharp steel and dripping blood, all it took was a mere touch for the great beast to fall to his feet, growling affections with eyes closed.

In his mind’s eye he drags his hands through the still-wet oil painting and corrects it. Suzaku smears the bright purple dragon and erases it, scraping the paint collected in his fingers into something new. 

It’s more crude but far more true to reality. 

A blurred figure of a man holding Suzaku as the sword pierces his heart, as if comforting him in the sins he has committed against the being that had become the stars in his sky. With a swipe of his thumb he adds a splash of purple on his face, the eyes that had ensnared him and never changed no matter what form Lelouch took.

Suzaku wants to drag his fingers over his own face, tear apart the thing that had destroyed his heart and turned his life into a directionless void. He’s a sailor without the stars, stuck in a black sea.

But he doesn’t do any of that.

It turns out that the legends about dragon’s blood were true. Legends of how if someone were splashed with the vile beast’s blood that their worst nightmares were to become a reality. Suzaku remembers Lelouch’s blood coating his hands, soaking into his armor and clothes underneath. Everyone had mistaken his tears for sweat. Caught up in the monster’s smoke and flames.

_ “ _ **_Live._ ** _ ” _

Suzaku had felt it sink into his skin, past his bones, and brand itself into his soul. 

Despite the horror and agony that had choked him, threatening to strangle him like a noose, Suzaku had whispered, “Yes, my prince.”

Just for Lelouch. Only for Lelouch.


	2. Midnight Lover

Suzaku had caught wind of a rumor, a fantastical one at that. 

It felt like it had been torn directly out of the pages of those novels Nunnally likes to keep in the royal library. A rumor of a prince locked away in a tall, tall tower. There are variations to this rumor, some say that a witch cursed the young man to keep him there, others say that it was a mighty dragon barring the prince from escaping. Some even whisper that it was the long-lost prince, the one who had disappeared during the demon’s ruin. 

The day of Requiem.

It’s too much like a fairytale. Too good to be true.

But rumors were rumors—people liked to make up all sorts of tales—spinning yarns to impress friends and newcomers alike at the tavern. Suzaku was all too content to let this ridiculous rumor stay as that: just rumors.

That is, until someone from Nunnally’s network shows up at the castle with a black scale. Iridescent with purples and greens. 

It’s twin, the most precious gift he’s ever received, carefully strung up in a necklace sitting protected under Suzaku’s armor, feels like it’s burning against his chest.

When the scale is presented, Suzaku stares in shock. It’s tarnished but immediately recognizable and the knight cannot look away, the rest of the queen’s court starts to fade into a muffled haze.

A thousand questions whirl in Suzaku’s mind, overwhelming and unable to be processed. He stares at the scale. Recognizes it. Knows it. But doesn’t dare make the next logical leap and connect the dots. That would mean hoping and hoping would mean feeling. He would much rather have numbness.

Suzaku is alive, the dragon’s curse denying him that sweet release, but he had felt dead inside up until this moment. 

Nunnally’s information network is incredibly well-connected in the kingdom, and dragons were a threat to the kingdom. It made sense that she would have them be on the lookout for any signs of them. 

Did she hold out hope too? That by some miracle he would be alive?

Suzaku snaps back to attention as Nunnally, his queen, calls his name. He’s too well-trained for anyone else to have noticed the lapse, but Nunnally isn’t just anyone. 

She doesn’t have to order him to investigate these claims but Suzaku appreciates that she does anyway. Following orders like this gives him the confidence, the stability, to follow through. When he’s following orders Suzaku won’t doubt himself.

And so Suzaku sets out that day, supplied and armored for the long road ahead. Just him, his loyal horse Lancelot, and his thoughts.

Suzaku is not looking forward to it.

It’s been a few years of not thinking about it and now on the road, not able to lose himself in the daily routine of being queen Nunnally’s personal knight and protector, the thoughts slowly start to creep into his mind.

If Lelouch was alive, then how did that come to pass? And more importantly…why?

Requiem was supposed to be the final act, the end of an era and the birth of a new one.

Suzaku had seen it in Lelouch’s eyes, the finality and the acceptance of his own death. The fear of dying that he couldn’t hide no matter the mask he wore. Lelouch could spin enough prose to leave Suzaku dizzy but he just couldn’t hide the way his fingers would tremble as he clung to Suzaku in the night, or the tiniest hitch in his breath as he described exactly where to stab him. 

To ensure his quick demise.

On that day, it felt like Suzaku had stabbed his own heart and shattered it into a thousand tiny shards. 

Suzaku is broken and cannot be repaired. Sometimes, when he starts to feel a little too much it’s like someone is jamming jagged pieces of a cup together. Trying desperately to fix something shattered. But unlike kintsugi, there’s no beauty in Suzaku’s broken state. There’s nothing that can be the liquid gold to repair this broken cup.

When his feelings start to get too much, Suzaku simply bottles up those emotions and questions and tucks them away. Hides them in little glass bottles and places them on a shelf deep inside himself.

It’s better not to hope. It’s probably nothing.

After a few days traveling off the beaten path, following the barest of clues, Suzaku reaches a tower. Lit by the fading evening light and standing proudly in a clearing of flowers, the stone tower reaches for the sky despite the base slowly being reclaimed by nature. 

Suzaku stares up at the faint orange glow of candles shining from the window and onto a tiny balcony. 

The stubborn little bottle of hope rattles in his chest.

The tower’s stones are just ragged enough to climb and after a quick look around the base it appears to be his only option. 

Shedding his glinting armor at the base, though protective it’ll only weigh him down, he gets a grip on the stone and begins to climb.

With the rising moon’s light guiding him Suzaku climbs, leading him up, up, and up the stone exterior. After a few slips the knight hauls himself up onto the balcony, stilling to catch his breath he freezes as he hears the shifting of fabric.

“Good evening, my knight.”

Suzaku slowly turns, emerald eyes wide at the sight that greets him. In a little round room, perched on a chaise and reading by candlelight, is Lelouch. His prince, his dragon, his heart, whole and breathing once again. Seeing him again hurts more than he ever thought it could.

“Is it you…?” Suzaku hesitates at the threshold, “Really?”

Lelouch lets out a sigh through his nose and closes the book with a soft snap. He stands with grace and poise, all that muscle memory from his princely education never truly leaving him. The image of his love wears a robe, loosely tied around his waist to show off the smattering of scales framing his chest, a long tail slithering behind him. 

Taking a step towards Suzaku he tilts his head and gives him a little smile, “See for yourself.”

If this is a dream it’s by far the cruelest one yet. Half of Suzaku doesn’t want to take another step closer, as if that would shatter this dream and he’ll wake up on his bedroll staring up at the indifferent stars. The other half has to know, is utterly desperate to know. 

He stumbles in his first step, drawing a quiet chuckle out of the image of his prince. There’s a little tremble in his fingers as he reaches out but Lelouch doesn’t move, simply waiting for Suzaku’s touch.

Fingertips gently poke a warm cheek, lingering before they slide up to trace the line of iridescent black scales under his eyes. It’s real— **he’s** real. The way the tips of the scales catch along his fingertips, threatening to cut into his skin if he rubs the wrong way with enough pressure, cannot be replicated in a dream. He has scars from dragging his fingers up Lelouch’s back. He’ll never forget the way Lelouch snapped at him for being so stupid.

The bottles of emotion explode, piercing his heart, his lungs, shredding through apathy, and leaving him breathless. So many emotions he’s tried to smother, wrap himself up in a blanket of numbness, all come rising to the surface. It’s suddenly too much and overwhelming. 

“You—” Suzaku chokes out, hands balling into shaking fists. Face twisting with all these clashing emotions, angry tears gathering in his eyes. He reels back, pours all his anger, frustration, agony into his fist and then…

Thump.

The knight’s fist gently collides with Lelouch’s chest, barely making him move. He can’t—he just can’t. Suzaku refuses to break another good thing in his life. That’s what always happens. The moment Suzaku tries to hold onto something precious it breaks in his grasp.

For all the pain, everything Suzaku has gone through, he can’t bring himself to hate Lelouch. Not anymore. With a ragged, raw sob he starts to sink to his knees, barely registering the worried _“Suzaku!?”_ that falls from his prince’s lips. 

It’s all too much, suddenly feeling everything that had built up from what Suzaku had thought was the end of Lelouch’s life, the years apart, and suddenly finding him again. The emotional turmoil combined with his exhaustion from pushing himself through the wilderness becomes very suddenly overwhelming. 

The last thing he feels before he falls into blissful unconsciousness is something warm wrapping around him, cradling him in a contentment he hasn’t felt in years.

X - X - X

A slow, rhythmic drumming wakes him. No, not a drumming— a thumping.

_Th-thump_.

A heartbeat. Slow and steady, utterly relaxed, and completely alive. 

“Oh good, you’re finally awake.” 

Suzaku lifts his head and finds himself staring into beautiful amethyst eyes. He had apparently been using Lelouch’s chest as a pillow. Leathery wings shift on his shoulders, blanketing him in warmth. Little claws secure them around Suzaku as if to protect him from the outside world.

“My plans for our reunion didn’t _exactly_ involve you passing out from your emotional constipation and dragging your dead weight into bed. Luckily for you I caught you before you gave yourself a concussion, you oaf.” 

There’s love and affection sewn into each word even as Lelouch huffs at him.

Suzaku can’t stop staring, he’s still reeling with the knowledge that Lelouch was alive and well. 

He looks… different now. 

Before there had been an alienating presence about him, something that had always divided Lelouch from Suzaku. Perhaps it was that curse that had been placed on him that had separated Lelouch from his humanity. Or the tattered remains of his royal title that always separated a prince from his knight. 

But now the sharp, knife-like edges Lelouch had were softer. Perhaps softer wasn’t the right word, he was no less dangerous. Suzaku could still see the teeth, claws, and power that could easily tear him to pieces. However, Lelouch looked and felt more reachable. No longer as distant and unreachable like the stars. Lelouch felt so much more real now. Stripped of his titles, standing, and meticulous mental walls. 

It suddenly comes to Suzaku like a blow, Lelouch looks and feels truly _free_.

Suzaku takes a breath, “When you told me how to kill you…” He whispers, a few stubborn tears wetting his eyelashes, “did you know? That you would come back?”

_Did you lie to me again?_

Lelouch looks at Suzaku for a moment before shaking his head, dropping his head back onto the pillows with a huff.

“No. I had thought that I would die that day. And, as far as I can tell, I did. My body was consumed by my inner fire and turned to ashes, which happens with all dragons apparently. But then I woke up nearly a year later.”

Lelouch frowns and stares up at the roof. His prince had never been easy to read but even Suzaku can see the conflicted look in his eyes. For it to show so plainly, it must be truly bothering him.

“What do you do, when you plan for your death. Accept and make peace with your death. Feel the sword pierce your heart and fade into oblivion. Only to open your eyes again?”

Suzaku rises as Lelouch takes a deep breath, falling again as the man exhales, little wisps of smoke floating from his lips. 

“Keep living, I suppose.” Suzaku whispers, running a hand along Lelouch’s side, feeling where scales fade into skin. 

“Funny, that those words should come from you. Of all people.” Lelouch cracks a little grin. 

Despite the lies, the subterfuge, the pain—everything that Suzaku had been through the past few years—he missed his prince. 

“Lelouch,” the knight pushes himself up, large wings sliding from his shoulders to fan out on the bed. Something vulnerable must linger in his voice because Lelouch keeps looking away as Suzaku tries to catch his eyes. 

“What is it?” Lelouch replies as he looks at Suzaku’s chest. Flinching as Suzaku tenderly places his hand on Lelouch’s cheek, thumb dragging over the sharp, glittering scales under his eyes. 

“Look at me, Lelouch.”

Finally, Lelouch truly meets his gaze. There’s a little bit of fear flickering through those dark depths. Does he see the mental scars he gave Suzaku? The weight of what he made Suzaku do that still weighs him down even now?

Suzaku sees freedom, but also a price that weighs in those pretty eyes.

“I’m glad that you’re alive.”

There’s the faintest hitch in Lelouch’s breath, any other time Suzaku would have missed it but not while he’s hovering so close.

“The world is a lot lonelier without you…”

Lelouch finally breaks eye contact to stare at the opposite wall, blinking to keep that suspicious shine out of his eyes. 

A soft, warm laugh leaves Lelouch. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

The pair descend into laughter after that, the tension from before shattered with just a few genuine words. Lelouch pushes himself up as his laughs begin to fade, wings fluttering to settle at his back. His prince’s eyes drag down his face and settle on his lips, it’s incredibly deliberate. A warmth rises to Suzaku’s cheeks as Lelouch gently grasps his chin, his breath picking up as Lelouch leans close.

_Yes,_ Suzaku thinks as their lips connect, so achingly familiar. He missed this feeling too much, the quiet tenderness that came from just existing together. Where the rest of the world fell away and there were no knights, no kingdoms, no dragons.

Just Suzaku and Lelouch. 

_Yes,_ Suzaku thinks as Lelouch’s teeth catch his lip and he opens up to deepen the kiss, turning it into something heated—molten. As Lelouch’s hands come up to frame his face, holding him like the broken vessel that he is, Suzaku is once again reminded of kintsugi. Lelouch’s kisses are the liquid gold that fills in his hairline fractures and empty spaces. Never truly fixed but becoming something different, something _whole_.

Suzaku thinks that it’s fitting that Lelouch is repairing what he broke.

In the candlelit room words are finally exchanged. Sometimes breathlessly between more heated kisses, other times in somber tones as they can’t bare to meet each other’s eyes. It’s as heavy as it is cathartic. 

“There’s no going back for me,” Lelouch says, flexing his golden claws and looking at the way the candlelight reflects green and purple off his dark scales. “I made a kingdom that was fit for Nunnally, a peaceful world where she didn’t have to live in fear. But there’s no place for me in that world. That is the price for finally achieving my wish.”

Lelouch looks to Suzaku with a sad fondness, his hand absently rubbing at a spot on his chest hidden under his robe. “You played your part so well, Suzaku. That’s how all the fairytales end. The knight slays the dragon, rescues the princess, the kingdom is freed.”

“Don’t you deserve a happy ending too?” It seems cruelly unfair that Lelouch put in so much work, sacrificed everything, only to never be a part of the world he had created.

“You know monsters don’t get happy endings. Something like me has no place among humanity.”

Suzaku frowns at that thought. Of course, Lelouch just shakes his head at the sight of it, leaning in to kiss his jutting lower lip. 

“Come now, you have to return to your princess and her castle. Don’t you? Tell her that everything is fine and there aren’t any dragons left to terrorize the country.”

Lelouch reluctantly pulls away from Suzaku’s side, tugging the knight up off his bed and leading him over to the balcony. The night is beautiful, a cool breeze rolling through the clearing and rustling Suzaku’s hair. His emerald eyes widen with awe as he sees that bright white flowers have bloomed, blanketing the forest floor with pristine petals.

“Moonflowers. They bloom only at night, their delicate petals can’t take the heat of the day.” Lelouch adds as he leans on the balcony, when Suzaku turns he finds himself under Lelouch’s fond, wistful gaze.

“I’ll visit!” Suzaku blurts, truly surprising Lelouch. “You don’t have to be lonely, wallowing your days in this tower by yourself.”

Lelouch snorts and rests his elbow on the railing, cheek propped up on his hand. “Oh? I suppose I’ll become your midnight lover, hm? The love you spirit away to under the guiding light of the moon?” 

His prince’s voice is mocking but for the first time in a long while, there’s a genuine earnestness in Suzaku’s heart. “Yes, your highness.”

Suzaku loves Lelouch and would travel over mountains, barren wastelands, and raging rivers to have him in his life. It’s better than not having him at all.

“Oh,” Lelouch breathes, a faint pink rising to his cheeks and highlighting the dark shining scales. He looks away with something that suspiciously looks like a pout on his face, “I...I have no right to be called that anymore. I have no titles or kingdom to call mine.”

“What shall I call you, then?” Suzaku asks, sliding around to try and catch Lelouch’s gaze once more. 

Now it’s Lelouch’s turn to be pinned by a pair of eyes, shimmering like emeralds in the moonlight.

“Lelouch. Just Lelouch. Or,” There’s both shyness and slyness in Lelouch’s eyes, taunting and alluring. “How about...yours?”

Suzaku’s heart feels like it’s ready to break through his ribs and lunge for Lelouch so Suzaku pulls his former prince in close. “If you’re mine, let me be yours as well? Not as your knight, but as your heart. Your happy ending.”

“You sentimental—” Whatever Lelouch plans on saying is cut off by another molten kiss, Suzaku swallowing a rumbling groan muffled between their lips. He tastes smoke and heat, perhaps a faint lingering of that spiced venom that Lelouch had worked into his system in their intimate moments.

Lelouch sighs when they part for air, taking a deep breath before dropping his head to Suzaku’s shoulder. “Stop delaying the inevitable,” comes a quiet grumble, “You can’t stay here.”

_You can’t abandon Nunnally. Don’t you dare._

Suzaku can read between the lines and while his heart screams to stay at Lelouch’s side, he’s right. He’s not any old knight, he’s the Queen’s personal protector. Lelouch would never forgive him for leaving his sworn duty. That, and his half-dragon love might just tear him limb from limb.

Suzaku likes having all four limbs intact.

“I’m coming back for you,” Suzaku replies, pressing a kiss to the graceful curve of a horn rising up out of Lelouch’s hair. “I promise.”

“I look forward to seeing you again, I put a lot more stock in your promises than my own.” Lelouch’s wings flutter at his back as he takes a deep breath and pushes himself upright. 

Suzaku steps from Lelouch’s side and hops up onto the stone railing, as if to climb down the stone tower once more. Instead, Suzaku gives Lelouch a look and starts to fall backwards, slipping off the railing and into open air.

“ ** _SUZAKU!?_ **”

Brown curls flutter around his ears as Suzaku falls and he waits. Sure enough, not a moment later there’s a sound like a sail snapping in a gale and Suzaku is bathed in shades of green and violet. Backlit by the full moon, the membranes of Lelouch’s grandiose wings look like stained-glass. Claws hook into his leather and cloth, wind whipping as Lelouch’s wings pump to slow their descent. The pair land in the field of flowers with a soft whump. Lelouch perched on Suzaku’s stomach, that silken robe pooling around his waist with only the loosened tie keeping it on his body. 

Suzaku looks up to see Lelouch’s eyes aflame with rage, dark wings spread wide behind him, and dainty white petals falling around them like snow. It’s the most beautiful sight Suzaku’s ever seen.

“ _Are you insane_!? I thought you’d grown out of your death wish but—” Lelouch begins his tirade but is interrupted for the second time that night. 

Suzaku’s hands glide over Lelouch’s stomach lingering where scales and skin fade into one another. He pries a clawed hand out of his clothes and presses a kiss to golden claws, trailing up to the back of Lelouch’s hand. Slowly, the aggressive and angry line of Lelouch’s wings starts to lower with each gentle touch, each lingering kiss to his draconic characteristics. 

“My heart… cares not for your changes,” Suzaku breathes against dark scales, “what you are doesn’t matter to me. What my heart wants is you, Lelouch. Even if you’re scared of this new state you find yourself in, my heart isn’t going to change what it wants: you.”

Lelouch’s face becomes an interesting shade of ruby red and he makes a strangled noise. The knight is quite pleased to actually quiet the talkative Lelouch, who seems to be able to have a comeback for anything and everything. 

In lieu of actually responding, Lelouch hides his face in Suzaku’s shoulder and just makes a series of frustrated grumbles and hisses. Suzaku just laughs and wraps his arms around Lelouch, holding his love close on this moonlit night.

“You stupid—idiotic—I… I…” Lelouch grumbles before saying something intelligible into cotton. Suzaku makes a questioning noise and tilts his head towards Lelouch, silently asking for his once-prince to repeat himself.

Those three whispered words make Suzaku shudder. He feels alive.

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed my two-shot of a dragon AU! Made with the lovely contributions from a ridiculous group chat. Love you all~❤
> 
> If you're curious about what Suzaku's referring to about venom and their "intimate moments" you should read Zov's spicy fic [For Thy Duty (Be Thy Lord’s Pleasure)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26846500). ;3 Mind the tags!


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